Giulio Terzi stood down in protest at the Italian government’s decision to send the marines back to India after a two week row.

The marines, Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone, were arrested by Indian authorities after they allegedly fired on the fishermen while guarding an Italian flagged merchant vessel from pirates in the Indian Ocean last year.

Salvatore Girone and Massimiliano Latorre at Kochi Police Station in India

After being allowed to temporarily return to Italy to vote in general elections in February, the foreign ministry in Rome said the marines would not be sent back to India to face justice.

India’s top court subsequently warned Italy’s ambassador not to leave the country without its permission, while Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister, warned the bilateral relations were at serious risk.

In an apparent u-turn, the Italian government then ordered the marines to return to India, prompting Mr Terzi’s resignation.

He told parliament he was stepping down “out of disagreement with the (government’s) decision to send the marines back to India”.

Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi in the Chamber of Deputies after announcing his resignation

“My reservations had no impact and the decision was not mine,” he said. “My voice went unheard”.

Giampaolo Di Paola, the defence minister, said that Mr Terzi’s views on the case “were not shared by the government”

“I know what Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone, looking me in the eye, said on the night of March 21: ‘Don’t abandon us’. I won’t abandon the ship,” Mr Di Paola told parliament. “It would be easy to resign, but it wouldn’t be right and I won’t do it”.

Mario Monti, who remains Italian prime minister while Italian political parties negotiate the creation of a new government, said he was willing to address parliament about affair, which has been widely perceived in Italy as an embarrassing gaffe.

“We hope that Monti is absolutely clear because our international credibility is at stake,” said Angelino Alfano, secretary of Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party. “We appreciate the courageous and dignified act on the part of the foreign minister,” he added.